where orders emerge

Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 27 of the manuscript of Deirdre McCloskey‘s forthcoming volume, The Treasured Bourgeoisie: How Markets and Improvement Became Virtuous, 1600-1848, and Then Suspect:

The enrichment of the poor, that is, has not come from charity or protection or regulation or trade unions, all of which, despite their undoubted first-act popularity among our good friends on the left, merely redistribute a constant or shrunken pie.

The Great Enrichment came in turn from human creativity unleashed by liberty and dignity for ordinary people – that “liberating and honoring” of market-tested improvement and supply.